THE FIRST CAMP 
melodies until about 1 A.M., when they curled up under 
the verandah and went to sleep. Occasionally one 
or two very hard-up young gentlemen, whose need of 
tobacco was urgent, would volunteer to assist in the 
moth-catching, but for the most part they preferred 
free evenings like the young working people of more 
advanced nations. Visitors from Dinawa dropped in 
until the camp became a thronged resort. Then 
unfortunately things began to disappear, and it was 
necessary to keep the natives at a greater distance 
and restrict liberty of entrance. ‘‘No admission 
except on business” became the rule for outsiders. 
On my own boys, I found it was best to impose no 
cast-iron regulations. 
Nor were these all our occupations. Besides the 
lepidoptera, there were ornithological and botanical 
specimens to collect and preserve. Of the last, the 
more succulent required constant care and changing, 
and some took three weeks to dry. Photography 
proved a pleasant change, and on nights unfavourable 
for moths, we darkened the house with blankets and 
had a spell of developing. At such times one realised 
poignantly the limitations of a savage country, and 
the value of things that at home are too common- 
place to be remarked. Our chief lack was a good 
flat shelf. Amateur photographers with luxurious 
equipment should figure to themselves the discomforts 
of a ridgy shelf of split bamboo on which no bottle 
will stand upright. Groping in the dim red light 
among one’s materials on that crazy ledge was as 
productive of maledictions as the royal and ancient 
game itself. 
120 
